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violetsmoak · 5 years

Text

Tabula Rasa [3/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183281/chapters/47879533

Blanket Disclaimer:

Summary: Tim and Jason have known they are soulmates for years, though neither has said anything about it. Tim thinks Jason doesn’t know, and is just trying to live with it. Jason thinks Tim knows but doesn’t care, which is fine with him, he thinks the soulmate thing is a crock anyway. But one night, a minor mishap forces them to confront the issue head-on, leading to a series of events no one could have predicted.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #danger #enemies to lovers #i’ll protect you #soulmark tattoo #soulmate aversion

First Chapter

Author's Note(s): Low and behold, plot, and not just Tim whump. (Although there's definitely a big hit of that, too)

________________________________________________________________

Jason maintains that he doesn’t run. He just makes a well-timed exit.

Out of Gotham.

He meets up with Roy and Kori who are in Key West of all places and convinces them to do something on the other side of the planet. Somewhere dusty and without reliable communication technology, where he hopes they’ll end up being abducted by aliens again.

It has nothing to do with wanting to ignore the whole soulmate thing, or the nagging flickers of guilt he experiences for having been an epic douchebag to Tim, who he now knows gives a shit about being soulmates.

Which isn’t Jason’s fault.

It’s not on either of them that Tim got stuck with Jason or that Jason had to make clear where he stood on the issue. There’s nothing worse than giving someone like Tim false hope.

“Not even breaking his heart?” Kori asks, cross-legged on the couch in her trailer, hair flickering above her like a crackling fire. She ended up getting the story out of him within a day because she’s Kori and lying to her feels like slapping a kitten or something.

“First, I didn’t break his heart. Second, if I did, he’ll get over it,” Jason insists. “And it’s better it happens now than let him mope about it for the rest of his life. At least this way he can put an effort into findin’ someone who actually cares.” Kori tilts her head to one side and presses her lips together. “I mean, it’s not like I want the kid dead anymore, but I’m not lookin’ to make friends or family or whatever with him. And at the end of the day, he’s a decent person and I’m not, so there’s that, too.”

Jason ruins everything he touches—case point, the soulmate he’s already tried (and temporarily succeeded) to kill.

“It sounds as if you already care more about the mate of your soul than you wish to admit,” Kori remarks.

“He’s not my mate.”

“No, not with that attitude.”

“You think I have an attitude? Because I don’t want anything controllin’ my actions or my destiny? The idea isn’t supposed to bother me?”

“I did not say that. But you are looking at the whole thing from just the one angle.”

“You’re tellin’ me it doesn’t bother you?”

“It does not. But I am not you, and matters of the soul are a subjective issue,” she says and leans forward. “You always have a choice, Jason. There are many who have been linked by fate yet choose not to be together. You have seen me and Richard.” Jason’s eyes flick to the creeping pattern of blues and greens that wrap around Kori’s wrist. “Xhal may have decreed we be together, but we decided it was best not to. We have different values, different understandings of the world and relationship—and we both have deep commitments outside of ourselves. That is why I believe the universe ensured he also has Barbara.” She smiles, gentle but sad. “We choose to be mates of the soul from a distance. And I am content with this. It gives me…freedom, in a way. But that decision was made after a long bit of thought and much discussion. Not because we disliked the notion of fate.”

“That doesn’t mean I need to do the same,” Jason points out, a little stiffly.

“No. It does not. But whatever you feel, you and Timothy have a bond. And you are knowingly cutting it off without giving it a chance, something which no doubt does him harm.”

“Not as much as it would if I were around him.”

“You do not know that.”

“Uh, yeah, I do.”

“Very well.” Kori’s brow furrows. “I will not argue with someone that has set their mind to something. I have given you my views on the matter, or rather concerning your mate and your own self-worth. Do with them what you will.”

And she strides out of the trailer; Jason sees a burst of flame outside suggesting she’s flown off.

“And what’s your take on this?” he grumbles, glancing at where Roy’s been sitting the whole time, fiddling with what might have been a DVD player once but now more closely resembles a miniature drone.

“Not my circus, not my monkeys,” Roy grunts around a screwdriver in his mouth.

Jason rolls his eyes.

“Although,” his best friend continues, putting down his tools, “don’t you think by avoiding Gotham, you’re pretty much letting the whole soulmate thing decide how you’re living your life? How’s that different from fate or destiny or the Giant Spaghetti Monster?”

Which Jason can’t summon an argument against.

He hates it when Roy makes sense.

It’s another day of procrastinating before he throws up his hands and says, “You both suck and I’m never comin’ to you for anything ever again.”

“Just call ahead next time,” Kori hums. “Stella is teaching me to make carne asada and I will require another test subject.”

“We’ve only needed to get the fire extinguisher twice,” Roy adds, and Kori nods proudly.

“You two disgust me with your domestic bliss,” Jason informs them before he leaves, although seeing them has made him feel somewhat better.

His friends are an excellent example of a successful relationship despite not being soulmates. Kori’s embodiment of joy was the perfect balm to Roy’s garbage pile of a life. Rejected by his soulmate, his addiction, losing Lian…

Actually, now that he thinks about it, Roy’s life only really started on its downward spiral after Jade ghosted him.

There’s something worrying about that knowledge, but Jason doesn’t examine it too closely.

He heads back to Gotham, a little chastised and a little wary, but determined to keep giving fate or Xhal or whoever the finger. If anyone asks (and no one does), he’s not back to the city because of Tim, but because he still hasn’t figured out who put the contract out on Johnny Lino.

It’s nagging at him more than the death of one of his informants usually does. The trail went cold almost immediately, nothing beyond the traces of a sniper in the opposite building. He’s calling it a coincidence for now, although he’s mentally earmarked it for potential problems in the future if anything else like this happens.

Maybe Johnny just got too big for his britches and pissed off the wrong mobster. One with access to the quality hitmen he couldn’t afford.

Two nights later, when he stops into a club that’s the front to a high stakes illegal poker game, he decides it’s no longer a potential problem, but an imminent right-the-fuck-now problem.

He’s there to collect his percentage from a few of the guys around the table, but once the door closes behind him, he’s suddenly getting ambushed by a table for people with knives and no qualms about dying.

Jason has never liked killing people; it’s something that occasionally has to be done, in the same way a cop sometimes has to pull his service weapon. Certain people in particular—serial rapists and pedophiles and the Joker—are part of that ‘it needs to be done’ category. Thugs like this are just small-time losers with bad judgment, so he’s not really aiming to kill any of them.

Immobilizing shots and the like.

Which is why he’s a bit concerned when he goes to interrogate the bastards about what’s going on, and the guy he reaches for suddenly starts foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling back in his head.

“What the fuck?” Jason jerks backward, glancing at all the rest and finding that they, too, are now convulsing and twitching as the life leaves their bodies.

Cyanide, he realizes when he leans close to his guy’s mouth and detects the smell of almonds. Again, I say, ‘what the fuck’?

It’s the second time a visit to an underling has resulted in death.

Something’s going on in his house, and he doesn’t like it. Maybe the trip to Florida wasn’t a good idea just now; he needs information, and he needs it now.

Except, when he canvasses the streets between Park Row and Byron, he discovers quickly that his people aren’t talking. The girls that are usually so chatty cross quickly to the other side of the streets, the hustlers on the corners are suddenly all on breaks, and the bodega clerks simply beg him to leave their shops, they have kids, you know?

The only one that will talk to him is Rhonda, one of the prostitutes that has been there longer than the rest. She’s a raw-boned woman with leathery skin and bleached, teased blond curls; once, a john tried to act out a rape-murder fantasy on her and she tasered him in the nuts until they burned off.

He’s not sure how much of that’s true, but if anyone could pull that off, it’s Rhonda.

“Someone put a price on your head, baby,” she informs him when he tracks her down, taking a long drag of a menthol cigarette. “Someone scarier than you.”

“Not possible,” he replies, trying to inject some of his usual cockiness into the words.

“There’s always someone scarier,” she informs him gravely. “Lotsa girls and runners gone to the new player. They says he’s gonna protect us better than Red Hood ever did, offer us a bigger take. More of our money in our pockets. Even gonna keep the kids safe better than you could.”

“Which you don’t believe, or you’d be jumping that bandwagon.”

“I believe what I sees, and I ain’t seen this guy,” she replies. “But he did send those Pike bastards outta here, runnin’ with their tails between their legs. Last I heard, they got picked up by one of the Bats before they set much on fire.”

“Which Bat?”

“Red Robin, I think.”

I guess I owe him for taking care of that particular headache.

“He’s pretty decent for a mask,” she adds. “Always comes down here when you ain’t been seen for a few days. He a bit softer—never leaves anyone crippled—but the alley stays safe when he comes by.”

Jason scowls inside his helmet. He didn’t come here to talk about his replacement.

“What do you know about this new guy, then?” he asks, redirecting the conversation back to his current problem. “The one trying to move in on my turf, not the wannabe Bat.”

“Oh, no, honey, that’s all I’m givin’ you. Anyone hears I told you even that and I’m in trouble. But I hear you ain’t the only one having troubles with him. Penguin’s stepped up his muscle a lot lately.”

“I guess that means I’m going clubbin’,” Jason says, and hands over a few hundreds. It’s more than the information she gave him is worth, but she’s got a kid to feed. “Take a night or two off, Rhonda. Could be a hard few days.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” she replies and pockets the money, slinking into the shadows.

The next stop on his list that night is the Iceberg Lounge. As usual, Penguin doesn’t intend to be helpful in the beginning.

“I assure you I have heard nothing of this newest player,” he croaks after Jason goes through the obligatory routine of threats and a show of violence. “But then, a good portion of my clientele has absconded to the Hungry Ghost these past weeks.”

“The what?”

“A new club—little more than the front for a brothel. But rife with rumors and scandal.” He smiles his oily little smile, the one that Jason’s broken more than once since he was thirteen and has to fight down the urge to do again now.

“It’s not like you to be so calm about this. You’re usually more of a control freak over the information game.”

“The wheel never stops turning, Hood. There’s a reason I’ve been around longer than anyone else in this business. It’s knowing the proper time to stand and fight…and the proper time to move out of the line of fire. I will still be here when the dust settles.” The man grins wide, showing yellowed teeth. “But from what I hear, you might not be.”

“That a threat?” Jason growls, hand moving to his holster.

“An observation. And don’t look like that, do you really think I’d dirty my hands on someone like you?” Penguin sniffs. “I am remaining Switzerland on this issue.”

“Switzerland, huh? So armed neutrality?”

“Indeed.”

His cold eyes following Jason as he takes his leave—and knocks out a few bodyguards that try to make a move on him as he goes.

“What the fuck?” he asks for the third time in as many days, absently rubbing the back of his left wrist. “How does Penguin not even know what’s going on?”

“Since he’s trying to stay alive,” a voice replies, and Jason almost—almost—jumps when he notices the shadow leaning over a nearby fire-escape. Red Robin materializes fully into the light but remains a conspicuous distance away from Jason. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”

Tim’s tone is careful.

“I didn’t exactly put it on MySpace.”

“MySpace hasn’t been around since 2009.”

“Yeah, well, I was dead that year, so sue me for not knowin’ that.”

He expects a reprimand or a bit of tooth-grinding like he always gets when he makes oblique jokes about his death. But Tim just shrugs. Which seems…off, somehow.

“A week ago, all the major players were sent packages,” Tim informs him, going back to the subject at hand. “Heads, hands, and hearts of their top lieutenants, and a warning to wait for orders from the new boss in Gotham.”

“So basically, someone took my schtick and went the extra mile,” Jason suggests.

And is trying to edge me out of my own business.

“B is monitoring the situation. It hasn’t spilled into the civilian sphere yet, so he hasn’t deemed it an immediate threat.”

“Of fuckin’ course not, it’s not his head the new guy wants on a pike!” Jason growls, somewhat irritated by this, but also a bit surprised. Bruce wouldn’t be leaving the matter alone if he thought Jason was in any actual danger; maybe, for once, he understands Jason can handle it.

Doesn’t explain why the kid’s here tonight, though.

“So what are you doing here?”

There’s a slight squeak of leather as Tim shrugs. “Protection detail. We’ve all been assigned to keep an eye out if whoever this is makes a move on one of the bigger names. I’m on Penguin tonight.”

“Capes guardin’ criminals,” Jason snorts. “The irony of that never gets old.

Tim doesn’t answer. No witty rejoinder, no impassioned defense of Batman’s credo.

“Still, at least you’re doing something,” Jason allows, somewhat grudging. “And you’ve been busy with the Pikes, from what I hear. I was savin’ them for a rainy day, but I guess it’s a headache I don’t have to worry about now.”

He expects Tim to display some kind of reaction to that, even if it is dark sarcasm.

“It’s my job,” he says instead, in a way that makes Jason frown. But not as much as he does when Tim shoots a grapple line and takes off without another word.

Well, that was weird. But…okay? I guess?

Tim didn’t mention anything about their soulmarks; didn’t even bother bringing it up. Clearly, he took Jason’s message to heart and is trying to be professional. Which is also good. Not a lot of people can handle rejection with any sense of maturity.

A little cold, but it’s Tim. He’s not as emotive as Dick is, anyway.

Jason puts it out of his mind, ignores that tiny flash of wrong that crops of when he thinks about the younger man’s behavior. Which doesn’t happen all that often, since he’s too busy running down his list of contacts trying to find out who exactly the new player is in Gotham.

In theory, he could go to the other Bats for information—could go to Oracle, if he butters her up a bit. She still has a thing for cinnamon buns from that place on 4th, it wouldn’t even be out of his way…

But he’s not really keen on talking to any of them right now, and not to put too fine a point on it, this is his business. It’s bad enough they’re even on the periphery of the case already.

⁂

Two days later, tracking a snitch that’s been avoiding him causes him to stumble upon a weapons deal going down in Tricorner. No local colors, but from the gear Jason calls mercenaries.

Red Robin’s in the middle of it, outnumbered by a lot and outgunned by more, and Jason throws himself into the fight without thinking too much about it. It’s what anyone in the Family does, after all, no need to ascribe any meaning to it.

Red grunts an acknowledgment—that he sees Jason and won’t accidentally break his jaw with his bō—and they settle into their usual fight pattern. Jason’s always found this all too easy—there’s something about fighting back to back with another Bat that’s just instinctive, whether it’s Dick or Damian or even Bruce.

But with Tim, it’s always been more than that. They work together like gears in a clock.

He always shied away from attributing that to their soul bond, because that would mean having to acknowledge it. Better to think it was because Tim obsessively stalked Jason when he was Robin and that Jason learned everything he could about his replacement’s style when he and Talia were planning his big return to Gotham.

But it’s out there now, isn’t it? They both know, it’s not a secret.

Just like Jason knows after several minutes that there’s something still off about Red.

Half his attention on his own fight with his own portion of the goons, Jason can still observe the other vigilante’s movements. Red is telegraphing his moves more. Nothing these brainless thugs would notice, but someone with Bat and League training could spot from a mile away. There’s a languidness in his movements like he’s not entirely present in the moment, and a lack of care in his attacks.

Jason watches as Tim takes a running jump, kneeing one thug in the chest and knocking him to the floor, then using him as a steppingstone—steps down harder than usual, dislocates the shoulder—twists and grabs the next nearest thug by the arm. Holding him, he hobbles him in the knee, then follows up with a kick to the head.

As the bullets fly, Tim tucks and rolls between two more assailants, sweeping the feet out from beneath the third, who stumbles, allowing Tim to weave beneath his outstretched arm and the gun he has pointed at him. Bowing his back into him, Tim tries to go for an elbow to the solar plexus, but the guy is shooting now even as he struggles with Tim.

Usually, he’d be attempting to ensure those shots remain nonlethal, but this time he doesn’t seem concerned with it. It’s by sheer chance that several of the slugs only hit the fourth guy in the shoulders, at points that Jason dimly recognizes as close to fatal.

Tim’s assailant is still shooting, they’re still struggling, and even as Tim twists and tries to get it out of his hands, bullets nearly hit Jason as he’s in the process of clotheslining his own opponent.

“The hell, Replacement?” he snaps as he ducks the wild spray of gunfire.

Tim ignores him but has apparently lost patience. He digs a birdarang out of his bandolier, slamming it into the meaty part of his opponent’s leg. There’s a shriek of pain and the guy crumples around the wound, then Tim whirls around and brings him down hard on the floor. As the fifth man comes at him, Tim breaks his nose and shoves him toward the sixth man, who he kicks in the chest, then backhands the last guy, using him as leverage to snap a kick at his buddy.

The guy goes flying backward, and Tim throws the final thug down on the floor, smacking him face-first against the hard pavement with enough force that blood pools around his head.

It’s quick, efficient, and merciless, and if it were anyone else the sheer beauty of the takedown would impress Jason.

Except, this is not the way Red Robin fights. Tim is always efficient, yes, but there’s a certain amount of force he always holds back. No matter how quick and brutal the fight, he takes the extra effort to avoid critical injuries.

That wasn’t there tonight; hell, he almost got Jason shot.

“What’s with you?” Jason demands when they are surrounded by feebly twitching bodies and Tim is calling in the GCPD to deal with the remaining contraband.

“Nothing you need to care about,” is the mild reply.

“I fuckin’ care if it gets me killed!”

“Then maybe you’re not as good as you think you are.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The tone isn’t the dry, snarky confidence Red Robin usually uses to deliver a line like that. It’s robotic and toneless and weary. Jason only remembers him sounding like that after Batman’s supposed death, when no one believed him about Bruce still being alive.

Wait. Did something happen while I was away?

“Christ, kid, who died while I was gone?” he demands.

“If we’re done here, I have a report to write,” Tim replies without answering the question, and is already walking away.

“Yeah, fine! You do that!” Jason shouts after him. It’s not like he actually cares for the answer.

And yet…

The whole thing bothers him.

Kid’s going to get himself killed, and it’s not even something I can blame Bruce for.

Mostly because he’s almost certain he has something to do with Tim’s mood. He might have overestimated Tim’s ability to handle rejection by his soulmate.

Which is disappointing, because of all the teenaged clichés he expected the younger man to fall prey to, giving up on himself the first time he faces rejection?

Typical rich boy. Got everything handed to him, so when someone tells him ‘no’, he has an existential crisis. Well, whatever. Screw him. It’s none of my business.

Though that assertion is easier said than stood by.

⁂

The next morning, Jason is still feeling uneasy about the whole thing. He didn’t sleep well, just tossed and turned for four hours before he gave up and went a few rounds with his punching bag. He decides to calm himself down another way and heads for the café he sometimes frequents that does tea almost as well as Alfred’s.

The place looks like a bar, but instead of alcoholic beverages, there are exotic teas and fancy cold drinks on display. It’s early enough in the day there aren’t more than two or three other patrons. Usually he comes in later when it’s packed and bustling and easy to disappear into the crowd; today, he appreciates the silence.

In the back corner, a television is on, broadcasting the morning news. The screen switches to a conference and, of course, it’s Tim fucking Drake front and center. Talking up something to do with his Neon Knights thing.

And it looks like Vicki’s up to her shit again.

The intrepid thorn in the collective side of the Family is needling Tim about his personal life. He’s deflects everything with his usual smile until Vale brings up Tam Fox.

Tim’s face is always so composed when speaking to the press, his smile rivaling Brucie or maybe the Mona Lisa for secretiveness. But as Vale’s questions veer toward the subject of soulmates—and Tim’s apparent lack thereof—it’s as if a thundercloud has taken residence on the teen’s face.

When Vale ignores Tim’s third polite side-step of her questioning, he jerks as if a physical snap takes place inside him.

“The last time I checked, this conference is about increasing funding for underprivileged students, not about my personal life,” he says, tone frigid. “And in case your many years of reporting haven’t drilled it into your head, no comment means no comment. If that continues to confuse you, maybe I should replace it with ‘fuck off’.”

The TV censors bleep it out, but you don’t have to be a lipreader to know it’s what he said. As the press clamor, Tim then stalks out of frame, which—

Shit.

Jason is both impressed—because even he never managed to do that when he had to deal with the press as a kid—and disquieted. Because Tim Drake doesn’t lose control like that, not least of all where the public might see it.

What the hell.

Jason heads back to his current safe house, wondering if maybe this might be something he should tell someone about. He doesn’t have to get touchy-feely about it, but he might drop a hint or two to Dick, or to Alfie, or someone who gives a shit about Tim.

They can have, I dunno, some kind of intervention or whatever white hats like they do in situations like this.

All thoughts of that vanish, however, when he turns the corner and notices a crowd gathered outside the building where he’s been staying. Large plumes of smoke are billowing above it, and there are a firetruck and two police squad cars parked out front.

What the…?

Jason hurries over and stares up, dumbstruck, to see a chunk of the edifice missing.

The spot where his bolthole used to be.

Someone firebombed the place.

Murmurs rise up all around him.

“I heard the guy living there was cooking meth, and it blew up.”

“Nah, there was a terrorist holed up in there. Probably didn’t set the timer on his bomb properly.”

“This fucking neighborhood.”

“I know, right?”

But Jason barely synthesizes the information, so fixated on one thing.

Someone knows.

Maybe they don’t know about him—he’s never come out of here without either a mask on or a hoodie or hat—but someone must have seen Red Hood come to this place. He’s swept for bugs and cameras, so there’s no way they’ve got a visual on him, but somehow they knew that was his apartment.

It’s too precise.

Which means his other places might be compromised, too.

Jason turns and walks away from the building, thoughts racing.

He wonders furiously about who it could be, who knows about his boltholes. Roy and Kori, obviously; he told them in case anything ever happens to him or if he doesn’t contact them for a while. He’s got a list of Roy’s in Star City and the tropical hideaways Kori’s come to enjoy over the years. They all call it insurance, but it’s a way of checking up on each other.

He could see the Joker figuring it out, but the gradually escalating attacks on Red Hood are too subtle for that maniac. Jason doubts they’ve seen the end of him since he made his last disappearing act, but this isn’t him. The clown likes an audience, likes to be noticed. These attacks are being done from the shadows and required a lot of planning.

Could be Talia, since he’s sure she’s been keeping tabs on him even long after they parted ways. She’d see it as leverage, as protecting an investment even if it didn’t give her the returns she expected.

And the Bats, of course, but none of them is the type to send a message with explosives, even when they’re all at odds.

It looks like Jason will have to lie low for a bit, watch his territory from the shadows. Deep surveillance.

He heads for his apartment in Crime Alley, which should be safe enough; he never goes anywhere near it when in uniform. Jason can regroup from there, remote-access surveillance from the moment before the safe house was bombed, check on the other boltholes from afar and—

And run straight into Tim Drake.

The kid’s bundled into a winter coat, but it hangs open, revealing the clothes he was wearing during his news conference meltdown. He’s missing the suit jacket, and his tie is loose under the collar of his shirt, carrying a plastic bag from the bodega down the street. Jason can see what looks like a week’s worth of ramen and TV dinners through the flimsy plastic.

All of which only serves to magnify that expression of absolute defeat on his face. That shifts into careful blankness when he recognizes Jason heading toward him.

The sight of him is the cherry on the top of Jason’s already shitty day.

“No,” he snaps, stalking forward and shoving a finger at Tim. “Fuck you. I’ve got enough of my own shit going on, I don’t have time to deal with your…all of this.” He gestures at the remains of Tim’s billionaire playboy costume. “What the hell are you even doin’ here, anyway?”

Tim sighs, weary. “I live here. Like…a block away.”

And it’s a measure of how messed up this new player in town has Jason that he actually forgot that tidbit. It makes him angrier to have it pointed out to him.

“Of fucking’ course you do! You’re everywhere else, why not my neck of the woods now, too?”

“I’ve lived here for a year and you never said anything,” Tim points out.

“Yeah, well, I never ran into you before, did I?”

He doesn’t add that that was before their whole soulmates thing got yanked out in the open.

“Being off-planet helps with that, I always figured,” Tim says blandly, and shoulders past Jason with all the strength of a sleepwalker.

Which just rubs Jason the wrong way.

He feels like he’s being dismissed, feels guilt that he doesn’t want to be feeling, and is still raring for a fight. Jason snaps his hand out and roughly pulls the other man around to face him; he expects a fist to block him, or for Tim to shove him off. Instead, he simply sways a bit on his feet like he’s trying to find balance.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

“What the hell is your problem, Drake? Don’t tell me you’re sulkin’ about the soulmate thing? Is this the reason for the lame-ass robot impression you’ve been doin’ lately?”

Tim’s expression doesn’t change. “I honestly haven’t had the time to think about it. There’s a lot of work to keep me busy.”

“Right, forgot, you’ve got to be the perfect clone of B to get him to notice you. Guess that tanked today, huh? Newsflash, kid, you weren’t the first to be replaced, and I’m bettin’ you won’t be the last. Go get a life.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Tim replies vaguely. “It would be easier to do if you stayed away, though.”

“Yeah, well, my life would have been a lot easier if you didn’t exist!”

There’s a breath of heavy silence in the wake of that sentence.

Jason’s fury fizzles out like a candle doused in water the minute the syllables pass his lips. Right away, he wants to take it back, because of the way Tim nods, his expression slamming into a wall of resignation that gives Jason an uneasy feeling at the back of his neck and a pit in his gut.

He backtracks. “Look, that’s not what I—”

Whatever convoluted explanation he was going to dredge up is lost, because at that moment two things happen near simultaneously: a gunshot rips through the ambient noise of the night, and Tim jerks forward, suddenly in Jason’s space, shoving him to one side.

Blood sprays across Jason’s face, and there’s a searing hot pain on the side of his neck, that experience tells him is a bullet.

Just like experience tells him the kid now slumped in his arms, eyes wide and still trapped in that awful blank stare took the brunt of the shot—to his head.

⁂⁂⁂

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<3 Violet

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eelgibbortech-blog · 6 years

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You don’t want to be one of the millions of bloggers stuck in the land of sameness — indistinguishable as you parrot the same old advice everybody else does.

You want your voice to be heard, and you want it to feel vibrant, fresh and new.

But your blog topic feels threadbare, and you’ve got no bloody idea how to make it exciting again. Every angle has been rewritten, rehashed and reused. It bores you so much you’d rather poke your eye out with a stick of spaghetti than write another post.

So you search for answers on how to stand out.

But all you find is airy-fairy platitudes. Provide unique insights! Be interesting! Write in your own voice!

It’s all surface-level hoopla that lacks the substance and specifics you really need.

So I scoured the Internet in search of posts that felt new and exciting despite having well-trodden topics. And I unearthed a handful of practical tactics you could add to your repertoire.

Enough small talk. Let’s get into it …

Tactic #1: Turn Fluffy Concepts into Living, Breathing Characters

Procrastination. It’s a well-worn topic. It’s also a bit of an ethereal concept — untouchable, yet it touches us all.

But in this insanely viral post, Tim Urban skillfully brings procrastination to life by casting interesting characters to play the roles of emotions that live inside a procrastinator’s brain. See what I mean …

Mel Wicks also did it when she created the Imp to play the role of Imposter Syndrome — another fluffy concept.

I have a nagging voice inside my head that constantly reminds me of my unworthiness. It tells me to give up before I’m laughed off the Internet. That I’ll never compare to other writers — the real ones.

[…]

I call this voice the “Imp.” Her full name is Imposter Syndrome, and chances are you’ve already met. If you’ve ever had that dread of being outed as a fraud because you don’t stack up to other writers, you’ve experienced Imposter Syndrome, and you have an Imp of your own.

Doing this makes reading about fluffy concepts much more fun and interesting for the reader. You bring the topic to life, as readers can visualize these characters better than ideas that only exist inside our minds.

So if you write about a topic that only exists in the abstract plane, consider breathing some life into it. Think of crazy names for concepts or aspects of problems that your readers may face, and cast human or animal characters in their roles.

Your readers will love it.

Tactic #2: Make Your Readers Choose a Side

Trump or Clinton? Yankees or Red Sox? Ebooks or paperbacks?

You can’t help but choose a side. It’s a natural reaction, and it’s one that you as the writer can play to your advantage. It’ll create standout content for even the most dreary topics.

Devise contrasting sides or categories and compare them to spark your reader’s attention.

Like this:

There are two types of bloggers in this world — let’s call them Sameness and Fearless. Sameness writes posts that are as functional and beige as an L.L. Bean parka. Fearless reveals his deepest thoughts and dares to try new things — even though he may fail.

Take, for example, Elle Luna’s post, The Crossroads of Should and Must, in which she rockets interest levels to amazing heights by contrasting two paths we can choose to take. It’s a home run of a post that takes the well-trodden topic of “living life to the fullest” to an entirely new level.

And then we have the $2 Billion Wall Street Journal Sales Letter, which is one of the most successful sales letters ever written:

It begins by introducing two young men, painting a picture of their near-identical happy lives, then throws in a surprising contrast to generate curiosity and emotion that makes it impossible to stop reading.

Contrasting two sides like this can be both engaging and persuasive. Readers will be swept up by the comparisons, and they’ll find themselves agreeing with the side you want them to pick.

So next time you write about a dreary topic, consider presenting two opposite sides, and force the reader to choose one.

Tactic #3: Make Them Laugh So Loud They Wake Up People in China

Humor is the perfect way to flip the script on a humdrum blog topic. Oli Gardner proved this point beautifully in his highly entertaining post on landing page optimization.

His setup was gold and left no doubt in the reader’s mind that the post was going to be an interesting ride.

Landing pages rule. Blah. Homepages suck. Blah. Do some A/B testing. Blah. Base your optimization strategy on customer feedback. Blah.

All of those statements are true. But they sound boring and being boring is lame. It’s twenty fourteen and I refuse to be lame.

If you want to be a non-lame marketer, it’s really easy. Read this post, have a laugh, and treat everything I say as gospel.

And he certainly continued to deliver throughout the entire post.

The experienced adult readers amongst you might remember that “Shit. The condom broke!” moment. Yeah you do. You might also remember that it felt like a good time to run a test. #STDsArentFunny. Perhaps. But, as we go through this epic journey together today, I’ll show you exactly when and how you should really be testing.

But what if you’re not funny? Humor can’t be taught, right?

Not true.

Humor writing is a creative art, and, just like all creative arts, it has structure and formula. And all artistic endeavours are built on teachable skills and techniques. — Mark Shatz, Comedy Writing Secrets

Sure, some people seem to be born oozing raw comedic talent, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are doomed. You’ll have to do the legwork, but it’ll be worth it. Many of the most successful and memorable blog posts ever written contain humor or quirkiness.

Here are two of the simpler humor writing tricks to get you started.

Humor Technique #1: The Rule of Threes

Simply put, you write three statements. The first two are the setup, and they establish a thought pattern. Then you add a third, incongruent idea, which is your main point or punchline. Like this:

Let me predict a few things that will happen in the next year. Jon Snow will unite the Seven Kingdoms and save the world. The day you wash and wax your new Honda will be the day it rains. And your inbox will clog up with so many deathly uninteresting posts that you’d rather stab your hand with a freshly sharpened pencil than read another one.

The rule of three is a classic joke structure that you’ll see used by many comedy writers. Here are a couple of examples by the pros so you can see it in action.

Men are simple things. They can survive a whole weekend with only three things: beer, boxer shorts, and batteries for the remote control. — Diana Jordan

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. — Jon Stewart

When you die there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. When my father dies, he’ll see the light, make his way toward it, and then flip it off to save electricity. — Harland Williams

See how that works?

Humor Technique #2: Ridiculous Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an age-old trick used to emphasize importance and evoke strong emotions. It’s also a powerful way to inject humor into a post. You can embellish or stretch everyday truths, over- or understate distance or size, and express extreme or ridiculous emotions.

Geraldine DeRuiter’s side-splitting post I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything is a good example, as it’s riddled with exaggeration. Just check out these entertaining quotes:

Like most things in my life, I’ve jumped in headfirst without putting any thought or research into it (this is also how I ended up taking a workout class called “Insanity.” Afterwards, I was drooling and delirious. So I guess it delivered).

Parenthetically, I really should stop listening to people just because they’re attractive. If Jeff Goldblum told me to get a bowl haircut and rob a bank, I totally would.

The cookies look exactly the same before they are digested as after. They are eternal and unchanging. As time passes, they don’t decline in quality or taste because they can’t. They’ve already started out at theoretical zero on that scale.

Hilarious, right?

To do this yourself, begin with a common situation, such as having dismal site traffic. Then play with how it makes you feel, what it makes you want to do, etc. Here are a few I came up with:

Dive into a pit of Kleenex and cry like a baby.

Send a fire-breathing dragon to incinerate Google HQ.

Run away and live in an igloo for the rest of your life.

You get the idea.

So dust off that funny bone and give it a go. It’s a hoot.

Tactic #4: Give Data-Driven Answers to Compelling Questions

In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger reveals the results of a study of New York Times articles. He discovered that science articles that discuss research results are more likely to go viral because “they frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries” that evoke a feeling of awe in readers.

In other words, readers love data-driven content.

So instead of approaching your topic the same way as everyone else, perform an experiment or run a survey and share the results with your readers in a post.

That’s what Mark Manson did when he crowdsourced his article, The Ultimate Relationship Guide to End All Relationship Guides™.

Rather than share his own opinion, he ran a survey by the people in his audience who were happily married for 10+ years that asked for their best relationship advice. He then turned the most common answers into an article.

BuzzSumo took another approach. They analyzed 100 million headlines to find the commonalities that popular headlines share and the ones unpopular ones share. Lots of content has been written about writing headlines, but data-backed insights like these are hard to come by.

Of course, you may not have access to thousands of subscribers like Mark does, or to millions of headlines and their share counts, like BuzzSumo does, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create data-driven content.

You could run a survey through Facebook Groups or forums. There are plenty of communities online that you could tap into. And hey, you might just go out into the real world and survey people on the street. That works too!

Or you could run a small-scale experiment of your own. For example, if you write about social skills, you could try different conversation openers with strangers and track their responses, seeing which ones work best.

Or, you know, you could grab data and research results from studies that have already been conducted.

Creating data-driven content takes work, but the end result will be a fascinating post that will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Tactic #5: Inject Your Post with a Healthy Dose of Attitude

There’s a powerful theme that appears in many wildly interesting posts — they all ooze head-flicking, hip-swaggering attitude.

They’re unmistakable because the writer totally embraces their irreverence. They’re written with wit and quirk. They’re unconventional, confrontational and bold. And they border on unreasonable as the writer dances on the edge of insult.

An undeniable strength and passion is woven through every word. There’s total conviction and unwavering commitment to the main idea.

David Wong nails it in his post, 5 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Own Life (Without Knowing It):

What I hate about articles like this is that they’re always trying to guilt you into bettering yourself. “What are you doing sitting on your sofa eating ice cream, you lazy bag of Dorito farts! Get off your ass and go become the high-achieving superman you know you can be!” That pisses me off because I know exactly why I’m on the sofa eating ice cream. It’s because I’ve had a hard day and this makes me feel better, so fuck you. Even if what I’m doing is a frivolous waste of time, I’m doing it for a reason.

Johnny B. Truant also does it well in his post, The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F**k About You (I mean, that title alone …) His irreverent message of “You don’t matter” hits hard, yet he turns it into something inspirational.

That means that although what you do doesn’t matter to the universe, it should matter one hell of a lot to YOU.

In fact, it should matter to you more than it currently does. If you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn’t waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn’t waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn’t waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you’d really like to do.

And let’s not forget Jon Morrow’s How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Bloggers. He just flat-out calls his readers dumb and gets away with it.

Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.

It’s because you’re dumb.

And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

Any post you write with irreverence will stand head and shoulders above the masses. Nobody remembers a fence-sitting, white-bread boring post. They remember the hilarious rant in which the writer unleashes daggers of unspoken truth upon a popular idea or common situation. They remember the posts in which the writer says the things that everybody wishes they had the balls to say — but don’t.

Be willing to put your neck on the line. And be ready to piss a few people off along the way. You’re not a blogger to lull people to sleep. You’re a blogger because you’ve got amazing ideas that need to be heard.

Do this by kicking your emotions into a higher gear. Give yourself permission to write freely — not as you should, but as you want. Don’t be angry, be furious. Don’t be happy, be delirious. Don’t be annoyed, be completely pissed off.

Tactic #6: Snare Your Readers’ Attention with a Surprisingly Mismatched Tone

Let’s start by imagining that all your readers are Walking Dead zombies.

They’re stumbling through their days on autopilot, scrolling through their newsfeeds in a stupor. Your only hope is to shove something unexpected into their eyeballs and shock them back to the here and now.

Contrasting your tone with the topic is a fantastic way to inject interest into your post. You can:

Mismatch a story about disappointment with an appreciative tone.

Be annoyed by simplicity.

Find pleasure in the pain of something going wrong.

Write about something you hate as if you love it.

For example, like this …

Ahhhh, tax time. I’m truly astonished by the painful and grim stories of hate and loathing I hear in the weeks leading up to the financial year’s end. Why would any sane person hate a justified reason to never answer their cell phone and leave emails unopened, unanswered and unactioned for weeks on end? And then there’s the crazy-sweet pleasure of spending hours searching for that needle in the haystack of receipts — and then finding it. It sends me into excited fits of high-fiving anybody within a ten-foot radius.

And check out this hilarious post about the worry of thinking you have cancer. A topic that summons expectations of gravity and worry.

So This One Time I Thought I Had Breast Cancer—And the Doctor Was a Huge D*ck

So today I placed my boobs into a giant, hospital-grade George Foreman grill and held my breath as the nurse took the X-ray.

The headline piques interest, and the wry and unexpected tone of the opening sentence snares your attention and commits you to an irreversible free-fall until the end of the post.

Tactic #7: Predict the Future

The future is the devil we don’t know. And it’s cloaked in uncertainty.

Your readers desire for certainty about tomorrow is as guaranteed as day turns into night — and it can be used to your advantage.

Build your reader a safe haven of certainty by predicting the future as Jon did here by sharing his view on how to write great content in 2014.

There’s evidence everywhere to illustrate how not-so-interesting, written-to-death topics, such as content marketing, can continue to pull huge share counts every year by exposing trends for the immediate future.

Mike Blankenship also worked this tactic nicely in How to Write a Paragraph in 2017.

But what if you don’t know the future?

Remember that none of us do. Chances are, however, that you know the history of your niche (if you don’t, get researching), you’ve checked out your competition, and you have an opinion about how things are evolving.

So be bold. Write a future prediction that becomes a magnet for attention as it creates hope, generates discussion and encourages new ways of thinking for your reader. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to call you on it — it’ll just vanish into the fog of forgotten posts. (You can always delete it too.)

Tactic #8: Pepper Your Post with Quirky Visuals

You’ve probably heard that you should add visual content to your blog posts. And yes, adding infographics, screenshots or photographs can do a lot to liven up your posts… But you can also use visual content to add some whimsy and fun to your posts.

Several of the posts I’ve already featured as examples do this.

Take the aforementioned Medium post from Elle Luna, the Crossroads of Should and Must. She doesn’t just have her readers pick a side, her post is also full of line drawings like this:

The casual nature of these line drawings lifts the feeling from humdrum to fun and injects the post with an entertaining dose of personality and character. As soon as the reader scans the page, they instantly feel like they’re in for a treat.

Tim Urban also uses drawings in his post about procrastination (and every other post he writes).

Line drawings are a great way to move away from the dry formality of graphs and screenshots, but they’re not your only option.

If you don’t feel that artistic — though you don’t have to be that artistic to draw a stick figure — you can also use other quirky imagery, like memes, cartoons and funny pictures. These can be found on the web or easily created with tools like Canva and other meme generators.

If you look back on Geraldine de Ruiter’s I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything, she interchanges the expected photos of food with images and GIFs like these:

Dull topics are more likely to send your reader’s brain for a coffee break instead of paying full attention. Keep them riveted to their seats by entertaining them with unusual, surprising and vibrant visuals.

Time to Breathe New Life into Those Old and Boring Topics

No blog topic is too boring, too dull or too worn-out to ever be interesting again. It’s you, the writer, who has everything within you to make it interesting.

Because when you do, your voice will be heard and you’ll know you’re helping others as you share new ways of doing things, thinking, and approaching tasks, work or life.

Your posts will stand out from the masses of regurgitated ideas and cookie-cutter advice.

Your posts will open the doors of possibility for your readers, and let you shine brightly.

So which tactic are you going to try first? Pick one and start today.

Light up your blog topic with an explosion of freshness like only you can.

About the Author: Miranda Hill is a writer and coach who helps life-hungry souls get unstuck from the chaos of life. If you want to stop spinning your wheels, hopping from one thing to the next in search of answers, discover the 10 Mindset Secrets That Set Truly Successful Writers Apart and realize your full writing potential today.

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8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again